What could that effect be ?

This distinct grading of colors , like they are separated , creating lines of transition zones , there should be seamless tranisiton between colors , but obviously there isn't .

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I see this problem everywhere in many games , particularly Skies , also water , terrain , smoke .. etc

What is the cause of this phenomenon ? lack of color precision ? memory saving techniques ?

NB: this effect is not the result of image compression .
 
This is called color banding and is typically due to an insufficient number of available colors. In this case it's perhaps more likely caused by a lack of precision in a shader or something like that.

What game is this?
 
Alright , I searched Color Banding and learned it occurs when using low color precision like 8 or 16 bits .. however it should be absent when using 24-bits , Does that suggest some games lower their precision to conserve memory/processing power ? I know that modern games are supposed to operate with 32bit precision (Alpha included).
 
GPUs seem to still only support 8-bit gradients for fog (and no form of dithering either), meaning only 256 levels of fog intensity, which is why these bands appear when there is only a small fog intensity gradient spread across a large(ish) distance. It's basically a pixel color precision issue I believe.
 
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